Strap: Move aims at keeping an eye on fradulent schemes to save people from being cheated
Maharashtra government plans to equip all police stations across the state with an economic offences wing (EOW) cell to keep a strict tab on all kinds of ponzy schemes, suspicious builders and other companies which collect money from people in the name of investment.
The move aims to nab the potential defaulter before he or she slips away wiping out hard-earned money from unsuspecting citizens. Minister of home (urban), Ranjeet Patil, said on Wednesday: "Every police station would have the EOW cell manned by a dedicated policeman to monitor activities of chit fund and other money circulation schemes, including housing. They can initiate inquiry if they observe anything suspicious in the workings of such companies or when huge amount of investments are involved."
"With the rise of online platform, cyber crime cases are on the rise. Monitoring online schemes would curb such cases," said Patil. He added that the state already has a law — Maharashtra Protection of Interests of Depositors (MPID) Act — to keep a tab on such activities and they just needs to strengthen its implementation with sensitising cops about it. "This would help us to stop such scams before investors lose money. The preventive measures would help reduce government's liability to a large extent," said Patil.
Maharashtra is among the earliest states to put in place an Act to save depositors. The MPID Act provides for a competent authority, a special court in each district, attachment of properties, a wider definition of the term 'deposit' and imprisonment of up to six years.
Maharashtra, in the meantime, has decided to strengthen IT wing of police force and is training around 1,000 officers on how to deal with IT-related offences. This additional force would help us prevent and crack such offences.
The home department officials, however, point out the practical problems in handling online crimes as existing provisions in the Information Technology (IT) Act are making fast probe difficult in such cases.
"The IT Act mandates to register and probe any complaint by an officer not less than a police inspector rank. However, most of the inspectors are not tech savvy. At the same time, we have several police sub-inspectors, who are young and have sound knowledge of technology for investigations," the official said.
To sort out the issue, the state has requested the Centre to make suitable amendments in the IT Act to allow officers of PSI rank to register and probe online frauds, the official said.
Patil informed that the government would audit the work of public prosecutors for the next one year and those who will show a significant conviction rate would be hired in future.
Akola to have commissionrate
Ranjeet Patil said that a proposal to establish a commissionerate at Akola is being considered. Also, government is setting up a mobile forensic lab to make criminal cases watertight so that conviction rate goes up.
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